Back to School and We Cannot Live Without Sunday

Some folks
are naturally wary when a new teacher comes into class to speak to their
children. That was certainly the case when President Obama announced he would
speak to the nation’s school children. Conservatives cautioned that the
back-to-school speech would constitute indoctrination into the president’s
“socialist” ideals.

Their fears were overblown. The
Sept. 8 speech turned out to be a routine pep talk about hard work,
responsibility, setting goals and persevering. All good stuff, if a bit
generic.

The speech took place on the day
after Labor Day, when most everyone was back in school. By a happy coincidence
this year, the day after Labor Day coincided with a feast day in the Church:
the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Long before she and St. Joseph raised
the Christ Child, Mary was a student under the tutelage of Sts. Anne and
Joachim. Her education was directed not so much toward making her best
contribution to her country, as was Obama’s emphasis, but in working toward the
ultimate goal in life: eternal happiness with God.

By another coincidence, the
Congregation for Catholic Education released a letter the same day. The letter,
directed to the presidents of bishops’ conferences, deals with religious
education in schools. It not only emphasizes the right and duties of Catholic
parents to educate their children in the faith, but also warns against
secularism in state-run schools.

While we wouldn’t expect Obama to
preach religion, he could benefit from a reading of the education
congregation’s letter. It contains valuable advice for all parents and
children, and it would be instructive for Catholics — especially those in
public policy — to read it at the beginning of this school year.

“The nature and role of religious
education in schools has become the object of debate,” the letter begins. “In
some cases, it is now the object of new civil regulations, which tend to
replace religious education with teaching about the religious phenomenon in a multi-denominational
sense, or about religious ethics and culture — even in a way that contrasts
with the choices and educational aims that parents and the Church intend for
the formation of young people.”

The letter focuses on the idea of a
complete education, which doesn’t stop at learning facts and skills. “A form of
education that ignores or marginalizes the moral and religious dimension of the
person is a hindrance to full education,” it says.

It quotes the Second Vatican Council
document Dignitatis Humanae in saying that “the rights of parents are violated
if their children are forced to attend lessons or instructions which are not in
agreement with their religious beliefs.”

The authors of the letter would be aghast at some of the things taught
these days, such as promotion of homosexual lifestyles or instruction in
so-called “safe sex.”

Certainly, we can all agree that schools need to work into their
curricula the teaching of basic virtues, which are common to people of all
faiths. Especially in a day when youthful violence and suicide are on the rise
and premarital sex is all too common, lessons in honesty, forgiveness and
modesty, to name a few, would do a world of good.

And if parents are upset that their public school is not reinforcing the
good values they and their Church instill in their offspring, the letter offers
one more point: the ability to choose between a public education and a Catholic
one.Parents “must enjoy true liberty in
their choice of schools,” it says. “Consequently, the public power, which has
the obligation to protect and defend the rights of citizens, must see to it, in
its concern for distributive justice, that public subsidies are paid out in
such a way that parents are truly free to choose according to their conscience
the schools they want for their children.”

This is a lesson we’d like the government to listen to.

‘We Cannot Live
Without Sunday’

Every Sunday,
all over the United States and beyond, people rise early from their sleep,
dress in their finest regalia, make special food and basically plan their whole
day in anticipation of what is about to transpire.

There will be seas of admirers in
purple, gold and white — royal colors — celebrating this day. It is, after all,
National Football League season, now in full swing.

However, often lost amid the honor
heaped upon Tom Brady, LaDanian Tomlinson and Troy Polamalu for their
on-the-field exploits is the honor due to the One on whom this day is supposed
to be centered.

Consider: How many of us who would
spend a whole day, sometimes in bitter cold, just to catch a glimpse of Brett
Favre would spend it in the same way honoring Christ? How many of us who would
pay $500 for one front-row seat to watch Tony Romo perform his play-calling
magic spend as much to see Our Lord perform a true miracle?

Thankfully, we don’t need to. Jesus
is there for us every Sunday, every day, in tabernacles all over the world —
for free.

Pope Benedict XVI, in an address to
the 2005 Italian National Eucharistic Congress in Bari, Italy, focused on what
should be the real reason for Sunday jubilation. Recalling the Abitene Martyrs
of the early fourth century, the Holy Father talked about how the 49 Christians
gathered in one of their homes to celebrate Sunday Mass, disobeying Emperor
Diocletian’s order that “the celebration of sacred rites and holy reunions of
the Lord were to be prohibited.”

After being caught by surprise,
arrested and taken to Carthage to be interrogated and tortured, the emperor’s
proconsul asked one of them, “Why have you received Christians in your home,
transgressing the imperial dispositions?” His response: “Sine
Dominico non possumus” (We cannot live without Sunday).

The Pope said, “Deep down was the
conviction that Sunday Mass is a constitutive element of one’s Christian identity
and that there is no Christian life without Sunday and without the Eucharist.”
That’s the best kickoff we have.

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